Watching The Clouds
by danielie
Summary: “What’s so special about it?” “Keep looking,” Shikamaru said, “hardly anything looks special at first glance.” ShikaIno oneshot.


**Disclaimer****: If I owned Naruto, it'd be a romance manga. So clearly, I don't… how sad.  
**_My first ShikaIno oneshot! Had this idea in my head since around chapter 9 of _Images And Imperfections_, and I think it came out pretty well. Yes, I know I'm supposed to be doing chapter 25 now, but I've been having a hard time with it and thought I should just do this first. Hope you like it!_

That Friday, Shikamaru was lying in soft grass of the park, his hands behind his head. The park was separated from the busy streets of Konoha, so it was nice and quiet. It was fairly sunny with puffy cumulus clouds hanging in the sky—perfect weather for cloud watching.

His eyes traced the cotton-ball appearance of one cloud lazily. It seemed to set itself apart from the other clouds—_too_ puffy, _too_ cottony. It moved through the blue sky at a pace slightly out of sync with the others; he noticed it was shaped more like a mushroom.

He mused over it for a second, and was about to let his gaze move on when he heard light yet loud footsteps coming towards him. He'd heard those footsteps for years and knew exactly who it was.

Ino did not stop walking until she was very, very close to him, barely standing behind his head. She looked down at him with a scrutinizing expression on her face. "Shikamaru, you're such a _bum_," she decided, putting her hands on her hips.

"Troublesome woman," he muttered, as he did nearly every time the blonde opened her mouth. "What are you doing all the way out here?"

"Killing time 'til I have to get to Sakura's house at seven. And here I find you," she made air quotes with her hands, "'cloud watching'."

"Don't knock it 'til you try it, Ino."

"Why would I want to?" the scrutinizing expression became even more so as she pursed her lips. "It's not like there's much to actually try, anyway. All you have to do is lie down and stare at the sky."

"If you can't do it, just go and stop making it a drag," Shikamaru closed his eyes. He heard Ino huff behind him. "I can do it. I just don't want to."

"Not forcing you," he said in a bored tone, and Ino glared at his relaxed form. He totally thought she couldn't do it, and she knew it.

She plopped herself down next to him abruptly, and Shikamaru opened one eye to look at her. She looked at a cloud—the same odd cloud he had been looking at, incidentally—and then stuck out her tongue at him. "Ha."

He rolled his eyes nonchalantly. "It's cloud watching, Ino. Not cloud glimpsing."

Ino's eyes opened wider in shock. "I have to look _more_?!" Shikamaru dragged a hand over his face. Ugh.

"First of all," he sighed, patting the grass next to him, "you have to lie down."

Ino was appalled. "No way! I just washed my hair!"

He involuntarily glanced at Ino's golden tresses, held captive in a ponytail as usual. They did seem to shine a bit more than normal. "Don't care," he turned away, "just do it."

Muttering a bit about shampoo being expensive, she removed the hairclip; Shikamaru watching her long, beautiful hair fall free. She leaned back onto the grass, her hair spreading like a halo around her, some of it landing on his shirt. "Now what?" she asked.

Shikamaru looked away from his purple-clad teammate and pointed to the sky. "Look up."

Ino looked up and looked back at him.

"_Keep_ looking up."

Ino switched her eyes back to the sky and frowned. "But nothing's happening!"

"Just look, Ino."

"I _am_ looking."

"Then stop talking."

She folded her arms against her chest and looked defiantly up at the sky. Clouds. Big deal. She turned back to him. "What's so special about it?" "Keep looking," Shikamaru said, "hardly anything looks special at first glance."

She looked up once again. "Relax, too," Shikamaru advised, and so she tried. She relaxed her taut lips and let her arms fall to her sides, like his were. That puffed-up cloud she had been looking at before seemed to be changing, and so did some of the ones near it. As she watched for a while, she began to feel more relaxed.

Shikamaru had closed his eyes again, but as a soft wind blew he felt something tickling his face. Opening his eyes, he saw soft strands of Ino's hair dancing in the breeze and sunlight in front of him. He wasn't hearing any more complaints from her, either. It seemed like she had finally gotten it.

He sneaked a look at her to make sure she wasn't sleeping, but he wasn't sneaky enough. She looked back at him, and their eyes met.

They jolted away from each other a second after. Ino's lips were taut again, and her face was slightly red. This wasn't totally abnormal for her—it happened when she thought of Sasuke years ago as a kid, back when she had liked him. But even then it hadn't been this strong.

Shikamaru, though, felt uneasy. Which clearly **never** happened. He drew his eyebrows together, thinking of the fastest way out of the troublesome situation with his brilliant strategist mind, and then looked to the clouds again.

That odd one was looking even odder than before, and some of the clouds near it were following suit. They were taking on a grayish hue, and Shikamaru would have noticed that sooner if Ino didn't abruptly point at a cloud a long way across from her. "Don't you think that looks like an ice cream cone?"

Shikamaru's attention switched to that cloud, and his eyes narrowed. "No. It looks more like a bottle."

Ino's face fell at his differing observation. "It's totally a cone. And that one looks like a cat."

"It looks like a _car_," Shikamaru looked at her incredulously.

"Cat," Ino said, satisfied with her answer. "It's a car," Shikamaru told her, and she vehemently disagreed.

They became so caught up in their argument that they turned away from the cloud, quarreling over the issue of cat-versus-car. ("There was even a small ear on it!" wailed Ino. "That was a rearview mirror," Shikamaru countered.) It was Ino who noticed the first raindrop splash off of her shoulder.

"Rain?" she wondered out loud as she sat up, and Shikamaru looked up to see the sky now varying from blue to gray, coated in cumulonimbus clouds.

"It's going to be _heavy_ rain," he said, easing himself off of the ground and helping her up. "We have to get out of here."

The raindrops were coming more frequently now, beginning to form spots on their clothes. "I can't find my clip," Ino said as she searched through her pockets, then the grass. Shikamaru waited impatiently for a minute as the rain fell harder and the droplets became heavier. "I'll buy you a new one," he called over the sound of now-heavy rain as he dragged her out of the park. They ran through the rain together until finally they reached the awning of a store.

Gasping, he turned to her. Her hair was matted onto her haphazardly now, and her clothes were pulled tight to her feminine form; he could see the rise and fall of her chest easily. She looked like an angel through his eyes, and he turned away against the wishes of his hormones. She was his teammate, after all.

He was faring no better through her eyes. His spiky ponytail had flopped slightly, and he was soaked through to the skin. "Are you okay?" they asked each other at the same time, and they laughed wearily.

"Well, we survived," Ino said, glancing inside the store. "Oh no! It's ten to seven already? I'm supposed to be at Sakura's house in a few minutes."

Shikamaru's face fell. "Well, not in this downpour," he looked from underneath the sanctuary of the awning to the torrential rain. "I'll just run out," Ino shrugged. "Sakura lives nearby."

"What happened to I-just-washed-my-hair?" Shikamaru questioned sarcastically, and she made a face. "I'll have to wash it again anyway."

Truth be told, he just didn't want her to go. She wasn't _too_ annoying; and spending time with her had actually been a little fun.

"Hold on a sec," he said, and went inside the store. She waited outside. When he came back, he had an umbrella and a hairclip in his hand.

"Oh no," Ino looked at him sweetly. "You didn't have to buy me anything!"

"I owed you the hairclip. And you'll catch a cold if you run in the rain anymore."

A tinge of red was on Ino's face as she pulled her wet hair back into a ponytail. "Thank you, Shikamaru. Maybe you should take the umbrella, though. You're just as wet as I am."

"I'll be fine," he assured her, feeling uneasy again. What was happening?

Ino glanced at the clock in the store again. "I'm going to be late. Thanks again, Shika!" she smiled at him and kissed him on the lips. The gesture surprised Shikamaru, but it was over just as soon as it had began.

"I had a good time… we should get together soon," she was still smiling. "Bye!" she waved and ran, umbrella open, in the direction of Sakura's house.

For a second, he just watched her run. When she was out of sight, he questioned his sanity.

Had Ino just given him a nickname?

She did.

Did she just use the phrase 'get together' in an extremely ambiguous way?

She did.

Did she just kiss him?

She did.

And had he enjoyed it more than any cloud watching he'd ever done.

Definitely.

"_How annoying,"_ he thought with a smile on his face as he ran through the rain. He would make sure they 'got together' soon.

* * *

And there it is. –smile- Review please!


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